Paquito D'rivera's Jazz Bubbles With Molten Heat Of A Latin Beat

August 11, 1985|By Richard Defendorf of The Sentinel Staff

One of the more rewarding turns jazz has taken during the past five years: Latin performers are taking the spotlight. One such, saxophonist- clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, will perform Tuesday at Bijou Entertainment Theater.

Although Latin rhythms and melodies had long been used to spice jazz -- witness the music of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington -- it wasn't until D'Rivera's defection from his native Cuba to the United States in 1980 that a Cuban soloist had really taken center stage, influencing jazz in this country in a way that Americans could instantly appreciate.

On his first Columbia album, the fiery Paquito Blowin', the 37-year-old musician drew not only on the music of his homeland but on his working knowledge of American jazz. That a newly immigrated Cuban could have created such a startling, seamless blend of Latin and American idioms does not seem so surprising when one considers that one of D'Rivera's first ear-openers was clarinetist Benny Goodman's 1938 album classic, Concert at Carnegie Hall.

''I was 6, maybe 7 years old when my father brought home the album,'' D'Rivera said by telephone. ''It was great. From that very first moment, I wanted to be a jazz musician.''

D'Rivera's father, a tenor sax player and arranger, also was an agent for the Selmer Company, and Paquito's first instrument was a curved soprano sax made by Selmer.

He learned quickly, assimilating both classical and popular forms. By the time he was 10, D'Rivera had learned the sax and had played clarinet in a symphony orchestra in Havana. He also had performed on television and radio, playing variants of Cuban and swing music.

After graduating from the Havana Conservatory, D'Rivera had settled on the alto and soprano saxes as his main instruments. At that time, too, he and several members of the Orquestra Cubana de Musica Moderna, with which he worked, formed the jazz-pop group Irakere. A stunning first album, Irakere, and the group's performances at the Newport and Montreux jazz festivals in 1978 brought Irakere worldwide attention.

For D'Rivera, all that was missing was the freedom to play jazz as he wanted to play it. The Castro regime in Cuba, however, had adopted a wavering, ultimately hostile attitude toward such ''imperialist music.'' While on tour with Irakere in Spain in 1980, D'Rivera asked for asylum. Five months later, he moved to New York City to live with his mother, who had resided in the United States for 14 years and had become an American citizen.

D'Rivera still lives in New York, the ''crazy city'' that he considers to be the world capital of jazz. He has recorded five albums for Columbia -- Paquito Blowin', Mariel, Live at Keystone Korner, Why Not! and, to be released in October, Explosion. His favorite, so far, is Why Not!, which features the harmonica work of Toots Thielmans.

''He was an inspiration,'' D'Rivera said of Thielmans. ''I've heard about his work for so many years, with Quincy Jones and everybody else. He is one of the greatest musicians I've ever had a chance to meet and a very nice person, too, you know?''

As for his own playing, D'Rivera still performs on the alto sax but has dropped his soprano sax in favor of the clarinet. The reason for the switch, he said, was to fill what he perceives as a void in jazz music.

''I didn't feel inspired with the clarinet in the kind of work I was doing in Cuba,'' he said. ''I mean, it's a very hard instrument and you have to keep in good shape.

''And then, when I came to this country, I started my career playing the alto and soprano, and some flute, too. But my first inspiration was Benny Goodman and I realized there were not any clarinet players around -- very, very few. I realized that nobody wants to play clarinet -- no, they are afraid to play it. It's a very hard instrument.''